Wednesday, May 23, 2012

America's Fascism Problem 3: Concentration Camps For The Queers

Earlier this month, I kicked off this series of articles with a piece about a North Carolina "pastor"
who, in the midst of that state's debate over an anti-gay ballot
initiative, urged his followers to violently abuse their young children
if said children show what his fevered brain regarded as early signs of
homosexuality. His antics--and, more importantly, the uniform approval
they received from his congregation--are a disturbing example of the
ugly fascism that has, for years, gestated, across the U.S. in, among
other places, reactionary fundamentalist churches.

A
few weeks later, the same state birthed another example of it. "Pastor"
Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church of Maiden, North
Carlolina used his Mother's Day "sermon" as an opportunity to go on a rampage against homosexuals.
In rhetoric that rather inescapably invokes an obvious historical
precedent, he suggests "lesbians and queers" be rounded up, dropped into
concentration camps behind electrified wire and left to die:

"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers... Build a great, big, large fence--50 or 100 mile long--put all the
lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the
same thing with the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence
electrified 'til they can't get out... And you know what? In a few
years, they'll die out... They can't reproduce."

Worley
was particularly upset about President Obama's recent endorsement of
same-sex marriage and left no doubt about his own political
affiliation, blatantly violating the tax-exempt status granted his
church in railing against

"our president gettin' up and
sayin' it was all right for two women to marry or two men to marry. I
tell ya' right now, I was disappointed bad, and I tell ya' that right
there is as sorry as you can get. The Bible's agin' it, God's agin' it,
I'm agin' it and if you've got any sense, you're agin' it... Hey, I'll
tell ya' right now, somebody said 'who you gonna' vote for?' I ain't
gonna' vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover!"

In
the immediate aftermath of this, Worley essentially went into hiding
and his church's website was taken down. CNN, in a sudden,
uncharacteristic decision to practice journalism, uncovered an audio recording of an old Worley sermon from 30 April, 1978, one that suggests his poisonous preaching on this subject is far from a recent innovation:

"We're
livin' in a day when, you know what, it saddens my heart to think that
homosexuals can go around, bless God, and get the applause of a lot of
people. Lesbians and all the rest of it. Bless God, 40 years ago, they'd
a' hung 'em, bless God, from a white oak tree. Wouldn't they? Amen."

Those
"strange fruits" left hanging from white oaks--and other trees--in the
South 40 years before this remark were, of course, those unfortunate
enough to be black and in the South at a time when Jim Crow was law and
backed up by racist terrorism. In 1938--exactly 40 years before Worley's
remarks--Southern Senators filibustered to death a major effort at an
anti-lynching law to put a stop to this. Worley's nostalgia is telling.

His
fantasies about the murder of homosexuals are hardly unique though.
They've been a perpetual fixture on the reactionary fringe for decades.
Like so many fringe views, these have been creeping into the
"mainstream" for years.[1] North Carolina's anti-gay ballot
initiative, like similar initiatives passed in about 30 states, are a
reflection of the same impulses.

--classicliberal2

---

[1] Only a few days ago, Mississippi state Rep. Andy Gipson called for putting homosexuals to death.
Responding to an effort to get him to apologize for this, he replied
"To be clear, I want the world to know that I do not, cannot, and will
not apologize for the inspired truth of God’s Word."

Your series would benefit a great deal if you focused instead upon the fascism that actually harms the greatest number of people rather than a few nut jobs you're quoting here. Read Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg. And, interestingly, I see you removed a comment by another poster here- a surefire sign - the suppression of other peoples speech - of liberal fascism. Gays are not American's problem, nor are those who hold religious beliefs close to their hearts. The real threat to American Democracy are guys like the mayors who what to prevent businesses opening in their cities because of the views of their owners. That's fascism in action. Liberal fascism.

The notion that you'll learn anything at all about fascism by reading Jonah Goldberg is amusing, at best. Get out of the kiddie section, and look into some serious scholarship.

The business with Chick Fil-A perfectly illustrates the absurdity of your own position. In your reactionary fairy-tale version of reality, the opposition to Chick Fil-A's actions is characterized as hate and fascism, while Chick Fil-A's millions of dollars spent funding actual hate groups and fascist organizations--the thing to which everyone was objecting--goes unmentioned.